In junior high, we had rotational “experience” classes to learn new skills, not related to books. We had typing, home ec, woodworking and drafting. One thing I remember about drafting (besides the smell of ammonia) was how many different drawings of one object we had to do to get the different perspectives needed to truly represent the object.

Fast forward many, many years… One of our customers was talking about “integrating” QuickBase with a document management system. These folks use QuickBase for project tracking, and for them that involves lots of different types of documents, like permits, drawings, change requests, etc. Their main challenge with using QuickBase to manage these documents is that each time a project needed another type of permit, for example, they would add a new field. Or if a project had five document fields and one project needed six documents, then they would have to add a field.

So, we explained with an example from our pre-built apps (“Manage a Project” under Project Management) that they could have a document library (a table that stored documents as records) that was related to projects. Each project could have as many documents as needed (no adding fields!), and any new type of document could be added via adding an entry into the multi-choice “type” field in the document library (no adding fields!).

After reviewing this, the client said … “Duh, that’s just like our notes table.” They knew the concept, but couldn’t see it from their current perspective. It is really amazing sometimes how hard it is to crane our neck around and look at a problem from a new angle?

P.S. I still use the wooden cutting board that I made in woodworking that netted my only C in junior high. I bet the folks that made an A on that project don’t still use theirs!

Hi everyone! I am Rob Donahue, one of the Application Specialists here at QuickBase. We often find that some "long time" QuickBase Users do not always take advantage of the newer features of QuickBase. Instead they "stick to what they know".

What a shame to think that folks are not using Conditional Summary Fields, Grid Edit, Reminders, or Time Zone features!

Do you find yourself falling into this group? I encourage you to take advantage of the Updates we post under QuickBase News on the My QuickBase page. This is a great place to see what we have added to the latest release and those prior.

Here are some examples of how we used the Summary Fields: In Sales we totaled the number of related Sales Activities to each account. We also, added them to the Manage Multiple Projects template to show the actual Start Date and End Date of a Project. I recently helped a customer compare a ‘Total # of Tasks’ summary field with a ‘Total # of Completed Tasks’ summary field to determine the ‘Percent Complete’ of a particular Project.

Have you used Summary Fields or another new feature? If so, let us know of some innovative uses.

QuickBase is now embedded so deep in my brain, I just can’t escape it. Case and point -Saturday morning I was reading a book about how to start our four-month-old eating solid foods.  There were rules upon rules to make sure your child ate the right variety of foods, at the right time, with the right precautions and monitoring in place to watch for allergic reactions.  There were complex formulas for the amount of food based on body weight, the consistency of food based on the amount of liquids drunk during the day, and how much additional liquids your infant might need post food.  YIKES!  Plus, all of this was complicated by the fact that there would be at least two of us feeding him at potentially different times and sometimes without the possibility of communication

So the maverick side of me said, “ah, he’ll be fine, let’s start with peanut butter – peanut butter is GOOD..mmmm…)  And the responsible, overly-protective side of me (known as my wife), said – let’s get a piece of paper and keep track.  But that just wasn’t going to work.  So in about half an hour I whipped up a perfectly fantastic QuickBase, complete with a schedule of foods (Sweet Potatoes first for a week, then Banana’s), and e-mail notifications to keep each of us informed on feeding progress.  We can even track his perceived enjoyment of the food (i.e. did he spit ALL of it out or just some of it) and share it with family members who love this sort of ridiculous detail. 

So the point is, QuickBase is pretty cool and can be used in SO many different ways!  At Intuit for example, we use QuickBase for a variety of lightweight business applications such as a flu-shoot database, tracking summer outings, vacation logging, etc.  Without QuickBase, tracking this information across an entire organization would be time-consuming and a general pain.  But with QuickBase it takes almost no time at all to create an application that can run the entire process.  Are any of you using QuickBase for some of these lightweight business applications for your organization? Let us know!

I’m going to talk in this post about near term “ahead” and then later (this week hopefully) about longer term “ahead”. First, the caveats… sharing new features early is tough for a few reasons:

• I have to give a brief overview (these aren’t our release notes), which inevitably leads to some miss set expectations (sometimes even scandalous rumors!).
• You won’t get that "holiday gift anticipation" the days leading to our release, because the surprise element will be gone.
• We might not get all the features planned done because of changes in scope and regular “things happen” demands.
• Some of these features will only be available for additional costs. Final packaging decisions have not been made, so I can’t tell you which now.

If something below jumps out at you as particularly "scandalous", don’t let it bug you. Talk to us about it by posting comments here or through feedback@quickbase.com.

So, here we go… As per our norm, we plan on having a Fall release. Based on feedback from our customers and prospects, our theme for this release is “supporting the corporation”. Here are the top three areas that this translates into:

• Enhanced Integration and Consolidation: I need some help in naming this one; these words are too bland. Two major features here: the ability to create relationships across applications and the ability to roll-up/synch data across applications. So for example, you’ll be able to have one, single, centralized list of products, customers, resources or initiatives that can be used across many applications. You’ll be able to have four different divisions with customized sales or project applications that work perfectly for each, but still “roll-up” to the corporate level key information about status. These are just two examples. Let your mind ponder this one. It is big.
• Improved Reporting and Printing: While you might hate “new and improved” wording in advertising, you’ll love them here. For you data analysis geeks, we are talking cross tabs with drill down. For the rest of us, we mean that you’ll have more flexibility in the layout of reports to help get your points across. We’ll also make improvements to printing, so you have less to worry about when reporting all your great progress and results.
• Easier User Administration and Increased Security Options: We’re adding user directory integration, including LDAP support, and a broad range of password policy improvements (expiring, lock-outs, length and characteristic enhancements, etc.). This one is geeky, but really cool to “all of the sudden” have the world of your corporate directory open to QuickBase. We’ve been using LDAP-based integration at Intuit for over a month now, and the easier administration has been felt by us and by our IT management team.

As the theme indicates, these features are targeted at larger applications with larger numbers of users which are demanded by “the corporation”. We’ve got you to thank for this! You’ve pushed what QuickBase can do, and we are all seeing continual growth in the “size” of applications, number of applications, and number of users that companies need us to support.

I look forward to your feedback and questions!

P.S. I apologize for being later than expected in getting this out to y’all. Along with backlog from our budgeting process, I’ve been training for a triathlon, which has completely corrupted my normal workaholic schedule. Three of us from the QuickBase team are taking part in this triathlon and many others who are supporting us. I feel lucky everyday to work with folks I also like to see on the weekends!

Here’s another little known QuickBase feature: you can create simple mailing lists using E-mail Address fields. You can use this to send an email to all the email addresses listed in a view.

To enable it, edit your e-mail address field’s properties and, under E-Mail Options, check the "Totals" checkbox. Then click the "Save" button. Note that the field’s type must be "E-Mail". If you are currently using a text field for your email addresses, you can convert it to an e-mail field by editting its properties and clicking the "Change Field Type" button in the upper right.

Once you’ve enabled Totals, a totals line will appear in your views. At the bottom of the e-mail field’s column, you’ll see an icon of envelopes. Clicking this icon will bring up your mail program with the "To:" line set to all of the e-mail addresses listed in that field!

Now the bad news: This feature is very dependent on your mail program. It’s implemented using a supposedly standard "mailto:" link.  However, there are two problems with how mail programs typically handle these links:

1. There is a limit to the number of email addresses that can be handled. The rest of the addresses are simply lost. The limit varies by mail program but in general I think you’re safe under 100 addresses but over 1,000 addresses won’t work. Try it out and make sure to double check that the last email address in the "To:" line is the last one shown in your view.
2. Different mail programs use different characters to separate to "To:" email addresses. We’ve chosen to use semicolons which are compatible with MS Outlook.

Hope you find this feature useful!